Episode 57: Strike a Pose

I'm working with a new photographer. Well, he's not new, but working with him is for me.

It had been a couple of years since I'd done anything like a formal shoot and to describe myself as nervous would be to put it mildly. I didn't expect it to go badly--I photograph well and I take direction--but would it be what he wanted, would we be able to get it to work?

I ended up first in the dress I wore for my senior recital, the floor length silver number that makes only a token spaghetti string of elastic towards covering my back. It's a different version of sexy--one that doesn't call for too much bosom or legs. Which was the near opposite of the other outfit for the shoot. Do you remember that night you and I went out in the City with some of the girlz and ended up controlling a not-very-big-dance floor for a few hours? The night I'd figured out that I could do the entire dance break from Beyonce's "Get Me Bodied." while in 4" heels? I'd been wearing a black tunic style shirt and jeans. Rather than going tunic-top, we opted to pull the hemline down a little more and skip the pants for the shoot--in essence what I see most girls at clubs wearing these days. Also, I was wearing the shoes from your wedding. My make up was simple, scrounged from my different bathroom drawers and shoved together at the last minute. Once I have a day or two that doesn't involve running hither and yon, the goal is to get over to Sephora and get a new foundation and some blush. I don't wear either much--preferring a sheer creme to powder, a bit of eyeliner and eye shadow and calling it a day.

The worst of it was that my hair had decided it wasn't cooperating. I'd done everything I knew how to get it to work with me, but the latest reformulation of Pantene* has been turning my hair slowly to straw and that night it had just given up the ghost. We left it pinned up in a bun, only eventually pulling it to a pony tail that looks a lot better in pictures that I felt it looked in real life. I've switched to Aussie for now and it's already looking much better. 

And for three hours we worked. Apparently he took over 500 pictures, which surprised me. I had estimated more in the 200-300 range. It doesn't seem like a particularly tiring task. Stand, turn, smile, look up, look down, cheat left, turn your head, look at the camera, pull your right shoulder--no, sorry,--your left shoulder, tighten your back. It was the end of an already long day though and by the time we finished, I was wiped.

Last night I finally got to see the first round cut and discuss a few things. He somewhat prefers the left side of my face, though he's not totally locked in on that statement. There were a few pictures that really popped and a few that I hope never see the light of anything other than his computer screen. We quibbled over whether or not seeing the thigh line on hosiery was sexy.

You could see the exhaustion in my face in some of the pictures. Not many, but occasionally when I wasn't posing or attempting to infuse my face with any particular emotion, tired took over and my eyes went bleak. Those shots bothered me--though they're probably some of the most realistic. It is hard to not want to look one's best before the lens and best rarely equals blank exhaustion.

And, by the time we'd finished chatting, we'd set up two more shoots. So I think we can say this has been successful. Now if we can just find a time to shoot when I don't have to get up the next day...

*So, part of moving back to a major city means that when I start griping about things like my shampoo, a friend of mine will chirp up and say that they know someone in that lab. We found out that there were a lot of unnecessary chemicals in Pantene and they've actually stripped the product down. Unfortunately though, this makes it useless to me. 14ish years of loyalty--down the drain.